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Bloody Roar 3 is a fighting game about human fighters that may transform into anthropomorphic animals at any given moment. But are all animals created equal? Hell no. Here are the power rankings for the animalistic fighters of Bloody Roar 3.

Alice the Rabbit

Let’s start with the biggest loser in this cast. Alice is, like so many other women in fighting games, here exclusively for the fanservice. She’s been a fighter since the first game, appears in every sequel, and never, ever does anything useful in the plot. She’s a nurse, so that’s a fine excuse to squeeze her into a sexy nurse costume (never scrubs, which, take note, game developers, can actually be sexy) or a sailor fuku, because, hey, gotta compete with Dead or Alive somehow. Alice is here for every horny male in the audience, and, given the general demographics of Playstation fighting games, that might be the entire audience.

And, to further the fanservice, Alice transforms into a giant bunny rabbit. On one hand, it’s supposed to be sexy, as it’s a clear reference to the Hefner/Toriyama bunny girl of yore. On the other hand, she turns into the Easter Bunny, and, barring that one time in Reno, nobody has ever wanted to have sex with the Easter Bunny. I don’t care if she’s wearing a short skirt; the cold, dead, red eyes are a deal breaker. Bunny ears and a poofy tail can potentially be sexy, but hopping feet are a bridge too far. Ugh! I’m not going to be able to eat a Cadbury Egg in peace for the rest of the week!

Oh, also, bunnies? Not known for the fighting prowess.

Busuzima the Chameleon

Addressing Busuzima on the power rankings almost feels like cheating, as he is clearly intended to be the “joke” character of the game. He’s a lot more likely to win a tournament than Dan Hibiki, but his introduction still involves him mooning the camera, and his general fashion sense is laughable (hey, wait, we own the same shirt). Addressing the fact that the goofy scientist that can transform into a lizard might not be as strong as the lion commando is obvious from the moment he appears on screen, and I may as well be making bold claims like “Luigi will never marry Peach” or “Stryker might not be the champion of Mortal Kombat this year”.

However, I have to address the cold-blooded elephant in the room: a chameleon is the worst choice for a fighting game. What is the chameleon’s one amazing skill? It’s a stealth monster! And what’s the one thing that that is never useful in a fighting game? Stealth! It’s a one on one match! You can’t “hide” from your opponent! Just ask Reptile! Turning invisible always sounds great in theory, but it’s not the easiest thing to control your imperceptible fighter. You’re a lot more likely to start punching air than actually achieve a hollow (ha!) victory.

And, yes, having a tongue whip is pretty cool, but there are other lizards out there. Are there any alligators in the cast? Dinosaurs? Come on, guys, we can do better.

Stun the Insect

Another one that is hard to judge. Let’s face it: Spider-Man has crapped in the hot tub, and now every other anthropomorphic insect has to take a poo bath. Spider-Man does everything a spider can, and he has “the proportionate strength of a spider”, so every insect or arachnid hero is expected to be on the same level. And can we really maintain that echelon of insectoid power? Of course not! If Spider-Man actually punched Doc Ock with the same power that could lift a Volkswagen, they’d be scraping up Ock brains over in Queens. Similarly, if Stun the Rhinoceros Beetle punched a random human with rhino beetle strength, we’re going to need the official Killer Instinct mop.

So once you drop the cool powers, what’s left for a giant insect? Not much. I guess being part of a hive or rolling around dung is cool an’ all, but it doesn’t really make for an interesting fighting character. And after that, you’ve just a got a head, thorax, abdomen, and not much else.

You know what would be cooler than a rhinoceros beetle? A freaking rhinoceros!

Xion the Unborn

“Unborn” my ass. That is a mantis, and I will waste no more time on yet another dumb bug.

Jenny the Bat

Bats used to be cool. They’re nocturnal flying masters of the night, and man has feared their skittery advance for eons. They are the basis for any number of myths, and you’d be hard pressed to find a single vampire tale from the modern age that doesn’t include our favorite flapping fiend. And the blood sucking! Nobody is afraid of mosquitoes, but we’ve got a thousand Jungian archetypes surrounding our greatest naturally enemy, the bat.

And then we hit the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. And now we know that bats are adorable.

Have you seen the videos? You’ve seen the videos. Everyone has. Bats are basically highly mobile puppies. Did you see that one with the milk bottle? Or those three that were hanging upside down on a dude’s finger? Bats don’t strike fear into the hearts of the weak and cowardly lot, they’re about one step removed from being helper animals. They should give bats to disabled vets. Oh man, can we train seeing-eye bats? That would be delightful!

In conclusion, bats are not scary, and I don’t care if Jenny wants to cosplay as a vampire.

Bakuryu the Mole

Here is the opposite problem. Despite appearing to merely be the bane of golf courses, moles are kind of vicious. Have you ever tried to dig… anything? It’s hard work! Just moving the tiniest bit of dirt is a tremendous effort. But for a mole, that ain’t no thang. Digging the deepest, darkest hole is second nature to those little dudes. And why? Because they have shovels for hands. Sharp shovels. They’re basically born with sword fingers, but everybody treats ‘em like some manner of subterranean squirrel. Squirrels can barely deal with acorns, moles could ruin entire continents if they deigned to dirty their knife hands.

Bakuryu the Mole thus becomes our first combatant that really chose an excellent animal form… and he gets no respect. Sure, he’s got a cyborg clone, but he’s not exactly the marquee character of the franchise. Typical. You choose one of the technically more impressive animals available, and you’re outshone by the freaking bunny girl. It’s all politics.

Yugo the Wolf

Wolves are scarier in packs. One wolf alone in a fighting tournament? Probably going to mess you up, but only a little worse than the giant bugs. Yugo only gets this position because I really can’t see a mole consistently defeating a puppy, left alone its more feral ancestor. It’s probably the vision advantage.

Uriko the Half-Beast

Uriko is another misnamed creature, but there’s a plot reason this time. In the original Bloody Roar, Uriko was a science experiment gone wrong, and was transformed into a Chimera. The Chimera is obviously queen of the roost, because, in a game about random animals fighting, the winner is the animal that is the most animals. Three in one? That’s going to do it. Unfortunately (or fortunately for her hopes of getting into a decent college), Uriko was “cured” of this chimera-ness at the end of Bloody Roar 1, and now the unfortunately named Uranus picked up her discarded goat/snake/lion powers.

Of course, nobody stays retired in fighting games, so Uriko was conscripted back into action, now with a “lesser” version of her Bloody Roar ultra beast form. Now Uriko is known as the “half-beast”. But in truth? She’s a kitty cat. She’s been demoted from final boss to our second fanservice character, and given the mysterious title “half beast” because it sounds better than Uriko the LOL Cat. Can she has cheeseburger?

She can!

Though I suppose you’re asking why the character that barely even qualifies for beast citizenship is so high on the list. This is because Uriko is a cat, and cats are terrifying. Yes, they can be adorable little balls of floof that bounce around after laser pointers and lick all sorts of crazy things; but they’re also monsters that play with their prey, destroy the furniture, and occasionally sleep on your head in an effort to obtain an earlier breakfast. Basically, if cats could ever get out of that one place where the sun shines and get their tails together, they’d have the planet conquered inside of a week. And then it would be us humans being dragged to Petsmart for a manicure.

And a cat with human intelligence? Frightening.

Long the Tiger / Shenlong the Tiger

Double tiger backfire. Disqualified.

Gado the Lion

Imagine all the cunning and intelligence of the common house cat, but in a body that could topple a car. Now imagine that same beast attaining human intelligence, and, I don’t know, maybe it has hair like Cloud Strife. And it can smell fear.

Gado is a mercenary or soldier or something (does the United Nations have foot soldiers? They do in this universe!), and he can turn into a freaking lion. There’s no stopping that! Part lion, part warrior is the exact thing we have been fearing since that one Mega Man episode, and here it is after it got a gym membership. Gado was the final boss of much of Bloody Roar 2, and that’s no surprise when you’ve got the king of the jungle running around. The Lion is the winner. There’s only one apex feline so powerful, so fear-inducing that it could possibly top…

Shina the Leopard

Nope. Article over. Not thinking about this game ever again.

FGC #352 Bloody Roar 3

System: Playstation 2 almost exclusively, though there is an arcade version in Japan.

Number of players: Two bloody animals.

Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: It’s a Playstation 2 fighting game that is more or less a lot closer to the Playstation 1 fighting game mold (ala Tekken 3). This isn’t a bad thing! It might not be advancing the genre or anything so lofty, but it’s a fun time, and the whole beast mode system incorporates a very natural handicap into the gameplay. Really kicking butt? Try not morphing, and let your opponent recover some of that lost health while you’re more defensive. More fighting games should allow for such an obvious “gimme” (and also the ability to turn into a lion).

Favorite Character: Uriko the Half-Beast, because I like the fast, easy to use characters. And I’m a horrible person.

Sexual Dimorphism is a Scourge: The first Bloody Roar seemed to have the most robust, varied roster in the series, and among its members was Mitsuko the Boar. Mitsuko was Uriko’s mother, and she was the extremely rare “heavy” female fighting game character. And she was rad! She was a basically a lady Zangief, and a boar is a pretty imposing animal form. Aaaaand she was never seen again. Bunny girl has appeared in every game in the series, though.

Did you know? There was an official Bloody Roar Chia Pet. Don’t laugh! There are Guardians of the Galaxy Groot Chia Pets, so it’s clear these guys know how to capture the zeitgeist.

Would I play again: There are so many fighting games on the Playstation 2, and, while this is the only one where I can control a mole-man, I don’t think we’ll see this one again. There’s a fighting lizard man in Mortal Kombat if I get in the mood.

Many “basic” games have the same problem: you only need one. Too often the gaming community focuses on every little thing about videogames and forgets that, before we had the technology of today (or the 80s), “games” had to be simple things to be at all practical. Poker might have nuances and strategies, but a second grader can learn every rule available inside of five minutes. Nobody ever has to explain checkers, and chess is just a matter of knowing that your horsey is clearly drunk. This is why these games have persisted for either hundreds of years or maybe seven weeks, depending on which Snopes article you’re reading. And the side effect of that is that your average person can literally inherit such a “game” from an ancestor, and never need a replacement. Granted, you don’t usually see a deck of cards passed from father to son (assuming your father isn’t Gambit, of course), but a family chess set isn’t all that uncommon (for nerds). Why reinvent the wheel when your current hooptie gets you everywhere you need to go?

Tetris is much in the same boat. While you could make new stages for Mario or design new Hyrules for Link, the simple tetromino needs only one home, and it’s a narrow playfield where the vertical line is king. Like Solitaire or Minesweeper, when the average person discusses “Tetris”, they might be picturing a black and white screen or a PS4-based colorplosion, but, one way or another, it’s the same game they have in mind. Tetris is Tetris. You could make a million different NBA Jams or NBA 2KXXs, but they’re all still based on basketball, and basketball is basketball. Tetris may have started as a videogame just the same as Mega Man, but we have never needed a Tetris 2 featuring Quick Man. Alexey Pajitnov got it in one, and, give or take a feature or two, Tetris need not ever change.

Which is not to say that producers haven’t tried.

Let’s see here… before we even got past the age of the Gameboy, we had Tetris, Tetris 2, Tetris Blast, Super Tetris 3, and Tetris Attack. But that was the heyday of Tetris, right? The inevitable age of imitators that happens to every franchise from Mario to GTA? Well, yes, and some of those games had about as much to do with Tetris as Dr. Mario had to do with Yoshi’s Island, but the exploitation of the brand certainly didn’t end there. You want Tetris with Mickey Mouse? Tetris with online features? Goddamn Hatris? We’ve seen Tetris in every possible way with every possible system. There was a Tetris designed exclusively for the Virtual Boy! That system lasted twelve minutes and had six games! Tetris isn’t just ubiquitous, it’s also been adapted more times than Romeo & Juliet.

So, by the time we got to Tetris Axis for 3DS (released in the fall of 2011, the 3DS’s launch year) we were already looking back at over twenty years of Tetris remixes. In fact, we had just seen the preeminent Tetris remix a few years earlier with “what if Tetris, but sometimes Mario shows up”. That was the best! Now… what? 3-D graphics? Half-assed augmented reality modes? The 3DS shop wasn’t even quite live by the time this hit the streets, so we couldn’t even claim that a version of Tetris constantly loaded onto the system was the latest innovation worthy of our attention. Tetris Axis seemed doomed from the get-go to be yet another forgettable Tetris port, and it would soon collect dust next to The New Tetris.

And, at first blush, Tetris Axis seems to have plenty of reasons to be forgotten. It’s got your basic endless Tetris mode, and… we don’t really need much more than that, right? Well, we’ve also got survival mode, which limits the play area, and fever, which is all the Tetris you can play in one minute. That’s a pretty neat idea, particularly for a portable version of Tetris on a system with a handy sleep mode. Play Tetris at a stop light (note: never do this)! And there’s a two player mode that is ready for some 3DS communication or tetrising against the computer, so that’s handy. None of this is completely original, one way or another, but it’s not bad for a game from the Tetris franchise. Good, but forgettable.

But then there’s “party mode”. Despite the name, these modes seem to be dedicated to a one player, no parties experience. Or maybe I’m just some kind of weirdo that doesn’t find jigsaw puzzles to be party material. Yes, “jigsaw puzzles” is basically the theme of two party games, Shadow Mode (not that Shadow) and (appropriately named) Jigsaw. What do jigsaw puzzles have to do with Tetris? I guess they both involve blocks? Kinda? Then we’ve got Climber, which involves stacking your blocks so they don’t disappear, and an anonymous little stick figure can climb said blocks to the heavens. That’s the complete opposite of Tetris! And speaking of which, we have Stage Racer. Guide a tetromino through a maze like so…

And tell me that isn’t Life Force, Abadox, or any other damn shooter in the world. Except, ya know, minus the shooting. Guiding a tetromino? Does that sound exciting to anybody? This would be akin to someone looking at a Mario game, and commenting that it would be a lot more fun if the guy in the hat didn’t jump as much.

And, ultimately, that’s how Tetris Axis feels. It’s a Tetris game that incidentally involves a number of modes that are barely Tetris. It’s a poker game where the main goal is learning to shuffle. It’s a football game where you see who can eat the ball fastest. It’s a chess game where you see if you can make the pieces kiss. It’s Tetris, but as an added bonus, here are a bunch of games that have nothing to do with Tetris. Did you want more Tetris in your Tetris, dawg? Too bad!

Tetris Axis is a Tetris game that, incidentally, wants nothing to do with Tetris.

FGC #349 Tetris Axis

System: Nintendo 3DS. And it’s got the lame 3-D mode to prove it!

Number of players: Two seems to be the right number here. There might be some additional, even more players modes, but they’re not readily apparent.

Favorite Mode: I can’t complain too much, because Tetris Blast does return in Bombliss Plus. It’s not as robust as the game that came out twenty years ago, but it’s always a fun time to play Tetris and make things explode.

Most Confusing Mode: Capture Mode is available, and it’s Tetris, but with some light color matching. It’s not terrible, but it indicates what you’re supposed to do so poorly that it really stands out as a dud. Or I’m just bitter because it took me forever to figure out and I lost a bunch of times. It’s one of those.

Did you know? There are AR modes in here, and they involve the question mark trading cards that came with your 3DS. Am… am I the only one that keeps those things handy for just such an occasion? I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to play a crappy Tetris mode on my real live floor.

Would I play again: Tetris? Yes. Tetris Axis? Not so much. Maybe if it were to become a free downloadable title, I’d go for it, but I’d rather play Gameboy Tetris any day of the week. And, conveniently, guess what is already on my 3DS?

The story of Adventure Island 3 is no epic tale. Master Higgins, a dude in a baseball cap and grass skirt, is chilling on a deserted island the size of a Dixie cup with his beloved Tina when a nefarious alien abducts the hapless maiden. Higgins boards the nearest plesiosaur, and paddles off to save the day. There is no trick or plot twist in this saga, all Higgins has to do to rescue Tina is venture across eight (adventure) islands, battle the occasional Mothra, and then conquer the aliens in an epic battle that involves fireballs and stone hammers. The aliens are not Dr. Wily in disguise, and no explanation is given for their preoccupation with poor Tina; they’re just monsters to be chased, and an excuse for Higgins to ride a dinosaur or six. Oh, and the adventure wraps up with Higgins and Tina back on their original weensy island (compliments of a pterodactyl), so it’s a zero-sum story from top to bottom.

But this is an ‘intenda game, so the story is perfunctory from the very start. What’s important is that good ol’ gameplay, and… Well, there’s not much to see here, either. This is a “NES platformer” at its most basic. Well, no, that would Adventure Island 1, wherein Master Higgins runs left to right and must at all time satiate his crippling fruit addiction. We’ve come a long way from those bygone days: now Master Higgins does the exact same thing, but sometimes he’s on a surfboard! Or a dinosaur! And, despite the fact that almost all stages only advance right and strictly forbid any backtracking, there are rare vertical levels that prove that Hudson does understand scrolling (and they don’t even involve Kid Icarus-esque scroll deaths). And the bosses are pretty neat, even if they’re about as fair as a thumb wrestling match against Eternia’s Fisto. Master Higgins can, at absolute best, suffer three hits (a bonus “heart” powerup plus a dinosaur buddy), and it’s very likely those damn boss monsters are going to barbecue the poor islander before he tosses the proper number of boomerangs. Boss patterns should not change mid-fight with a hero that has approximately zero HP!

But all that cruft is neither here nor there. No, what’s important is what Adventure Island 3 represents. What’s important is that Adventure Island 3 is a failure.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: a damsel is distressed when she is kidnapped by a giant, ambiguously evil monster. Her man springs into action to rescue her, and must battle across eight distinct lands to save the day. Along the way, he runs, jumps, and even recruits a dinosaur to beat back the nefarious forces of angry clouds and a strangely high number of murderous reptiles. After losing a bunch of lives due to the tiniest contact with random monsters (and the occasional bottomless pit), the brave knight saves his princess. And maybe there was a bonus stage or warpzone somewhere along the way, too.

Yes, obviously, Adventure Island 3 follows the exact same plot and general gameplay as Super Mario Bros. In fact, Adventure Island 2, the first game to feature Master Higgins riding a dinosaur, was released a few months after Super Mario World, the first game to feature Mario riding a Yoshi (and Adventure Island 3 improved on AI2 by… adding one more dinosaur). On a purely superficial level, Massy Hig’s Adventure Islands are incredibly similar to Mario’s treks across the Mushroom Kingdom and Dinosaur Land. Give or take the ability to actually dismount your incredible thunder lizard, you could probably provide the exact same instruction manual for both games. Master Higgins is a cape feather away from being an accomplished plumber.

But that’s where the tragedy occurs. On a shallow level, Master and Mario are the same. They run, they jump, and they collect one hundred doodads to earn an extra life. But actually play the games, and the differences become apparent. Mario has a precise kind of momentum, while Master Higgins has a tendency to slip around like a greased up potato man. It’s telling that Master Higgins has to be wary of inanimate rocks, while Mario at least has the decency to vault moving rocks. And that slipperiness pairs poorly with a number of “platforming challenges”. Want to leap across a series of mobile clouds? That’s kind of fun in the Mushroom Kingdom, but over in the Adventure Islands, Master Higgins is pretty likely to fall to his doom after about the second jump. Once you hit an ice stage, things are more slippery, but, honestly? It’s not the same kind of dramatic shift you’d see in Super Mario. Bros 3. Oh, there is supposed to be a dinosaur that cuts down on Slippin’ Higgy? Yeah, that dinosaur is a lie. In fact, all of the dinomounts are lies, as they amount to little more than the difference between Mario and Super Mario. The only dinosaur that isn’t a “fireball” or “slight movement” powerup is the new, green triceratops, and that’s because he offers the ability to roll into a spiky ball for exactly a second before immediately losing that powerup to terrible hit detection. Beyond that, I’m not even certain what the plesiosaur is supposed to do, as he’s just as useless as the frog suit on land, but only marginally better than regular swimming Higgins on the high seas. He doesn’t even get a lightning tail or something! You have to bring your own hammer!

And, when you get right down to it, describing this game, describing Adventure Island 3, is recounting exactly what being a human is. All the proper components are there! You’ve got running! You’ve got jumping! You’ve got a princess and a monster and eight worlds! This is exactly what Mario’s got! This is exactly what that successful guy has got… so why isn’t it working here? I can see Mario’s Facebook, I know we’re on the same level, so why is he so much better than me!? I could be happy! I should be happy! Why can’t Master Higgins be half as successful as a damned plumber!?

That’s Adventure Island 3. All the pieces are there, everything that should work is there, but… it doesn’t. Master Higgins is doomed to wallow on his teeny tiny island, while Mario just found out his ex built an entire city for his benefit. Adventure Island 3 is every one of us looking at that green grass on the next lawn over, and wondering what went wrong. And is this where I’m supposed to say something optimistic? Well, I’d love to say it gets better, but have you seen Adventure Island: The Beginning? Yeesh.

I just played Adventure Island 3… don’t expect any hopefulness out of this human for a week.

FGC #301 Adventure Island 3

System: Nintendo Entertainment System. There’s also a Gameboy port that is surprisingly faithful.

Number of players: One Master Higgins. Maybe the secret to success is having a Luigi?

Port-o-Call: The Gameboy version actually allows you to replay completed stages. I have no earthly idea why anyone would want to do such a thing, but at least it’s an option.

Favorite Dinosaur: I guess the blue dinosaur with the powered tail. He’s pretty much exactly the same as the red dinosaur with the fireball that is completely resistant to lava, but… he’s blue? He’s the underdog in a game starring an underdog.

Favorite Boss: Despite the inexplicable presence of Mothra, I’m going to pick the Salamander. He’s just like every other boss in this game (float and/or teleport around and lob fireballs), but he is at least on fire. And when he goes blue-flames, it at least looks cool.

Incidentally: This was supposed to be FGC #300, but I couldn’t find the rom while on the stream. Turns out it was there in the list, just under “Hudson’s Adventure Island 3” as opposed to in the I section where I expected to find such a thing. Oh well.

Did you know? If you see a flower, then that means a wolf is going to attack Master Higgins from behind. I still remember this tip from Nintendo Power.

Would I play again: Adventure Island 3 has struck me with an ennui that I can barely describe. So, uh, no.

The last time we saw a console Bomberman experience was seven years ago, back in happier times when the president wasn’t orange/bonkers and Super Mario Galaxy 2 had just been released. The last time Bomberman seemed nationally relevant was four years earlier than that, when Bomberman: Act Zero made us all laugh ourselves stupid at a realistic re-envisioning of a character that is best recognized with a purple deeley-bopper. And even before all that, twenty whole years ago, Bomberman 64 was the last time Bomberman was spoken of in the same tones as Mario and Zelda. Or… well… at least he got mentioned in Nintendo Power. That’s kind of the same thing. And, if you go back even further than that, to the far off epoch of 1994, you’ll find Super Bomberman 2, a game starring the titular Bomberman opposite The Dastardly Bombers, a group of nogoodniks that only ever appeared in one North American console Bomberman game.

So imagine my surprise when they were announced as the headlining antagonists of Super Bomberman R, a 2017 Nintendo Switch launch release.

So, since it’s been 23 years since Super Bomberman 2, I broke out the ol’ Know Your Bombers trading cards to help everyone get caught up in time for Super Bomberman R.

FGC #245 Super Bomberman 2

System: Super Nintendo. It’s super!

Number of players: Four! The original Super Bomberman came with the super multitap, and I’m betting pretty much everyone that snagged Super Bomberman also went for Super Bomberman 2. Well, except the six guys that just wanted that multitap for Secret of Mana.

Favorite Bomber Color: This was the first Bomberman (that I played) where you could freely choose your bomber’s color (as opposed to being stuck with white/black/red/blue forever). Green is a fine choice, but I have a tendency to go for Purple Bomberman. He’s so… regal.

Poor decisions: There are two additional stages in battle mode that are hidden by a secret code. They’re… not that exciting? They’re fun, and they’re “classic” stages, but I can’t find any rhyme or reason for why they’re hidden. It isn’t even a “beat the game to unlock” situation, they’re just… secret stages for the sake of being secret. What’s your angle here, Bomberman?

Did you know? Legend tells of Milon skulking around the password screen. Actually, there are four Milons to be found. That’s four more Milons than should ever be allowed on the Super Nintendo.

Would I play again: Here’s hoping Super Bomberman R supplicates any and all desires to return to this classic. Then again, if jelly bombs aren’t included…

What’s next? We’re going to look at the launchiest launch game of all time. No, not Mario. Let’s try something with a few more sports. Please look forward to it!